Daniel Seghers

Daniel Seghers Cornelius Schut The image of Mary with Child, carried by cherubs and adorned with garlands of flowers Oil on canvas (relined). 127 x 104 cm. Provenance Collection Willem de Blasere, Lord of Hellebus, Ghent, c. 1635, and mentioned in Segher's inventory as no. 135 - Galerie Marcus, Paris, 1970-74 - Belgian private collection. Exhibitions Taichung, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, The Golden Age of Flemish Painting, 1988, no. 54 - Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 4.9. - 22.11.1992; Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 12.12.1992-8.3.1993; and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2.4. - 20.6.1993, From Bruegel to Rubens, no. 99.1. Literature Diary of Daniel Seghers in: W. Couvreur, 'Daniel Seghers' inventaris van door hem geschilderde bloemstukken', in: Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis, vol. XX, 1967, p. 112, no. 135 - M.-L. Hairs: Pour un tricentenaire, D. Seghers, in: Revue Belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art, Liège 1960 - M.-L. Hairs: Dans le sillage de Rubens, les peintres d'histoire anversois au XVIIe siècle, Liège 1977, p. 213 - M.-L. Hairs: The Flemish Flower Painters in the XVIIth Century, Brussels 1985, pp. 125-29, no. 33, detailed photograph on p. 130 - G. Wilmers: Cornelis Schut (1597-1655): A Flemish Painter of the High Baroque, Belgium 1996, pp. 172-73, no. A108, illustration on p. 413 (erroneously as no. A110). Among Seger's numerous floral decorations around a central cartouche, this painting is a special feature. The action of the angel putti creates a certain dynamism. Four angels are in the process of attaching two festoons to an image of the Madonna in an oval, carved frame. Seghers, who after the death of his teacher Jan Brueghel the Elder became his most important successor in the field of Antwerp flower painting, created the picture together with the figure painter Cornelis Schut. Schut's free Rubenesque figuration finds its counterpart in Segher's detailed realism of the flowers and plants depicted and the vibrant use of color. This extraordinary joint work is known through numerous exhibitions and publications. The painting was identified by M.-L. Hairs in Cornelis Schut's self-compiled inventory under no. 135 (see Couvreur, 1967, p.112, no. 135). The buyer was probably Willem de Blasere, Lord of Hellebus, representative of Flanders to the States General and one of the plenipotentiaries for the peace negotiations in Maastricht and The Hague in 1632/33. His father Gerard de Blasere was a patron of the Jesuit order, to which the "painting monk" Seghers belonged. Seghers, who lived in the Jesuit convent in Antwerp until his death in 1661, became a celebrity in the care of the order. Princes and sovereigns sought him out in his studio and showed their appreciation for his work with valuable gifts, as he was not allowed to receive any income. On April 20, 1635, Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand visited him and purchased a more square version of the present composition. It has an imperial crown as an addition, which crowns the image of the Virgin like a small canopy (Couvreur, 1967, p. 110, no. 119). This painting was in the Galerie R. Finck in Brussels in 1961 (see Hairs, 1985, fig. 32). It can be assumed that the present painting was painted a little later in the same year, 1635.